


Pocketful of Sunshine

by bar2d2s



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, small guy/large girl trope taken to the extreme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-19 20:48:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3623796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine a universe where Dawn is a human, and Sunny is the same size he always is as an elf. Affectionately nicknamed the Pocket Boyfriend AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The past year of Dawn’s life had been a big, grey, ugly blur.

The doctor’s hadn’t caught the cancer in time, and even with treatment, her mother had wilted away, like a cut rose in a cold room. Her father couldn’t take the pain of staying in the same house they’d lived for her entire life, the town he and his wife had grown up in, so he closed their shop and moved them several states away. New house, new flower shop, new life.

As for Dawn? She’d just shut down.

Her sister was the only one to truly put up a brave front, shoving all her hobbies and childish interests onto the back burner, making sure her family didn’t implode. Marianne was 13 now, she needed to grow up and be the head of the house, like their mother had been.

It was Marianne that woke her sister up for school and made them lunches. Dawn was nine, not a baby, so she didn’t have to hover over her to make sure she took a shower and got dressed. After breakfast, she’d walk her sister to the bus stop, then bike to school herself. The middle school was closer to home than the elementary school, after all, and she’d always be waiting at the stop when school let out for Dawn. They had a good routine going.

The weekends were the worst, though.

Marianne was good at making friends, and was always being invited to the mall, or the movies, or to the park to play sports. Dawn had been more sociable once, but now, she preferred to stay in the house. On occasion, she’d play on the tire swing the last owners had left. It was her favorite part of their new home. Her new timidness was a source of great worry for Marianne, but she tried not to start any fights. Instead, she tried to include her sister whenever she could.

“Dawn, do you want to come to the park with me? I need someone to cheer me on, give me more incentive to strike out Joey Whittle.” She snorted. “Other than the fact that keeps saying I can’t.” Before Dawn even opened her mouth, Marianne knew she was going to say no. “Dawnie, at least promise me you’ll go outside today.” A small smile forced its way onto her face, and the older girl sighed.

“I promise.” And Dawn always,  _always_  kept her promises.

After she heard the garage door close, Dawn waited ten minutes before grabbing a juice box and heading into the backyard. Their house was last in a line of houses at the edge of town, a gated fence the only thing separating them from a dense forest on one side, and a big, clear field on the other. Why Marianne always rode half an hour to get to a dumb park when she had _this_  right out back, Dawn would never know. 

There weren’t any trees in her backyard, and the tire swing was actually attached to a branch that jutted out of the forest. Their father had checked it thoroughly when they’d moved in, and had declared it safe for  _gentle_  swinging, which was probably the only thing that kept Marianne off of it. Marianne didn’t do gentle.

Punching her straw into her juice box and shaking the couple of lizards off the outside of the tire, Dawn climbed in and started swinging. The motion of the swing moving back and forth soothed her, and if she closed her eyes, she could imagine that her mom was pushing her. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine a lot of things.

Mom was pushing her on the swings while dad grilled burgers and sang along to the radio. Marianne was running around the backyard with her new friends, playing some ball game. They’d moved all this way for a change of scenery, not because they were sad. Their family was whole and complete and-

She hadn’t realized that her swinging had gotten more violent, until the branch snapped.

Luckily, it fell on the outside of the fence and didn’t hit her. Unluckily, it was determined to take the tire with it, and her still inside it.

The tire whipped over the fence, rope going taut and snapping. Dawn pulled her entire body into the tire, screaming in terror. Eventually, she landed, bouncing a few times before coming to a stop. 

She was shaking as she peered out, but amazingly, her house was barely fifty feet away. She’d been flung into the field, though, which meant her tire had traveled a lot further than fifty feet. Impressive. She patted the big thing, propping it on its side to roll it back. Dad would have to put it back up when he got home, on a more sturdy branch this time.

There was a little groan from near her feet, and her heart stopped.

Dawn’s first thought was that she’d hit an animal with her tire, but animals didn’t groan with human voices. Crouching down, she spotted what appeared to be someone’s dropped doll. From the shape of its hair and its little overalls, it looked like one of the antique Norfin Trolls from her mother’s old sewing room, but Dawn knew all of those were packed away in a box in the attic. Had Marianne stolen them and thrown one out here? Had her father? Dawn felt the anger well up inside her. How  _could_  they?!

Then the doll rolled over.

She screamed. It screamed. She fell backwards over her tire, banging her head on an exposed root. “Owwww!”

There was a hollow thunking noise as someone, some _thing_  jumped on her tire, the quick patter of feet near her legs causing her heart to race. Then a tiny face popped over the side, staring down at her.

“Hey! Are you okay?” It,  _he_  called with the voice of a child. Her eyes widened.

_His headband is red_  was the last thing that went through her mind before she passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

Someone was poking her face.

Dawn groaned, lifting her hands to smack away the pointy stick they were using, but heard a yelp instead. Her eyes shot open.

 _The living doll was touching her_.

“Oh good, you’re alive.” It said casually, as if little girls in flying tires landed on it all the time. “I was worried for a minute there, you don’t look like the sturdiest big thing.” The doll had chosen to sit on the root next to her head, and was swinging its legs as it spoke. Up close, it looked like it was about her age. He did. A tiny little boy, with long pointed ears and fluffy brown hair.

“ _I’m_  alive?” Dawn said incredulously. “ _You’re_  alive! A living troll doll!” His face screwed up in displeasure, clearly offended.

“I’m not a  _troll_.” He spat, as if she’d insulted him. Then again, she probably did. “Trolls are  _huge_ , and they’d  _eat_  big things like you!” He bared his teeth in a snarl, curling his fingers into claws.

Dawn burst into tears.

He immediately dropped his hands, but lost his balance, falling over the back of the root. “I’m sorry!” He called, struggling to sit up again. “I didn’t mean to- did I scare you? Or is the, the  _crying_  thing a pain reaction?”

Truthfully, her head  _did_ hurt from the fall, but then again, that was his fault too. She was just scared, and tired, and hurting, and stressed. And it probably wasn’t even noon yet. She sniffled, and the doll boy crept towards her again, pulling a tiny piece of cloth from his pocket.

“Um, this probably won’t make much of a difference, but...” He patted one of her tears, and the cloth was completely soaked. “Yeah, figured.” It did do one thing, though, and that was make her laugh. “Oh! Now  _that’s_  a better sound!” Dawn laughed again, wiping her face on the hem of her shirt. “Sorry for scaring you.”

“Sorry for  _squashing_  you.” She replied, sitting up. “Are you alright?” The doll boy flexed his arms, grinning at her.

“You kidding, big thing? I’m an elf! Elves are super sturdy. My brother fell out of a tree once, didn’t break a single bone!” Considering how tall some of the trees around here were, that was pretty impressive, if his brother was as big as him.

Her head felt much better now, and she wasn’t as scared. This elf seemed friendly enough, and not likely to hurt her intentionally. “I’m Dawn, by the way.” She held out her hand, then curled in all but her index finger. It was still too big for him to hold, so she extended her pinkie instead.

“I’m Sunny!” He replied enthusiastically, shaking her finger. “So, tell me. Are you a  _grown_  big thing, or a  _young_  big thing? I’ve only seen you guys from far away before.” 

“I’m still little, I guess.” Her mother had been very tall, and Dawn hoped to be that tall some day, too. “But I’m only nine, my sister didn’t hit her growth spurt until this year. How old are you?” He thought about it for a moment.

“I’m one-eight and two.” Her face screwed up as she did the math. Oh, he was ten. “Sorry, we count things in eights, see?” He held up his hands. Four fingers each. “Nine is...one-eight and one?” She nodded, and he grinned. “So, about the same age! Nice!” His smiled faded slightly as his ears started to twitch.

“Something wrong?” He sighed, putting his hands in his pockets. 

“My mom’s calling me. It’s time for lunch.” Dawn strained, but she couldn’t hear a thing. “I shouldn’t be long, though! Wanna meet back here later?”

He looked so earnest, but she wasn’t entirely convinced. “How do I know you’ll come back?” Rolling his eyes, he untied his headband, then tied it up again around her ring finger. The material was hard, but still malleable. Like leather, but probably not.

“There, now we  _both_ have to come back.” He said, pushing his suddenly floppy hair out of his face. “I made that  _myself_ , and I’m gonna want it back from you.” Dawn searched her pockets, but all she could find was a hair pin. She gave it to him anyway, and he brandished it like a sword. “Oh, good trade, though. I might keep this.” She laughed, and his smile came back full force. He  _liked_  the way she laughed.

“See you after lunch?” She asked, tapping him on the chest with her finger. She tried to be as gentle as she could, but he was still knocked back a bit. He nodded, then winced.

“Ooh, she’s really yelling now. Gotta go before they send out a search. See you later!” And then he was off again, running as fast as his little legs would take him. Which, as it turned out, was pretty fast indeed.

Dawn stood, righting her tire and beginning to carefully roll it back to her gate. You never knew who else was hiding in the grass, and no matter how tough Sunny claimed elves were, she didn’t want to chance it. 

Her smile had been small as she made her way home, but once she passed through the gate into her backyard, it erupted into a full-on grin. 

She’d finally made her first new friend.


	3. Chapter 3

Dawn got the tire propped up against the fence, making it look like it had just fallen down, then went inside and made a sandwich. The kitchen clock said it was just after one in the afternoon, and when Marianne went out to see her friends, she was rarely back before five, though she was always home before the shop closed at seven.

That gave her at least five hours alone to do whatever she wanted.

Finishing her lunch, Dawn ran up to her room. She grabbed her school backpack and upended it, then repacked it with a blanket, some comics, a few cassettes, a couple of safety pins, a can of fruit, her watch, a laser pointer, and a little change purse shaped like a backpack. Running back downstairs, she pulled her dad’s big silver boombox off of its shelf in the garage, got a couple more juice boxes out of the fridge, and headed out again.

Sunny wasn’t there when she reached the spot where her tire had landed, but that was okay. She spread her blanket out over the grass, putting her backpack at one end and the boombox at the other, and sat down in the middle. Dumping the change back into her backpack, Dawn loaded the change purse with the safety pins and started to take apart her watch. She hummed as she worked, losing herself in the action of removing the actual watch part from the jelly plastic band.

“What are you doing?” Dawn screamed, and Sunny tumbled off her backpack’s brim, falling into it. “Stop  _doing_  that!” He yelled, struggling to push himself out through the top flap. Dawn held her hand to her chest, heart still going a mile a minute.

“You snuck up on me! I was scared!” Sunny snorted, and she was reminded of her sister.

“I made  _plenty_  of noise, you just have bad hearing.” He wiggled his ears, which got her giggling again. “So, one more time, what are you doing?” He was genuinely curious, walking up her leg to get to her lap. Dawn cupped the backpack in her hands.

“I’m making you a present. Kind of. It’s like a, a care package?” Her mom had made Marianne a care package when she went to sleepaway camp a few years ago. It had been full of cookies and Archie comics and a new tooth brush to replace the one that raccoons stole. “It’s my apology for squashing you with my tire. And screaming a lot.”

Sunny sat down once her reached her knee, waiting expectantly. After a few seconds of anticipation, Dawn opened her hands. “Ta da!” She dangled the backpack by its straps, then dropped it into his waiting arms. “It’s just, y’know, some stuff you might find useful. Safety pins, to make  _real_  swords out of, a watch to tell time, and-” A little red dot appeared on her leg. “And a laser pointer, if you’re ever nearby and want to get my attention.”

“This is  _so neat_.” He breathed, making the dot move around on her leg, then on her hand. As an afterthought, she pulled the headband off her finger.

“I promised I’d bring it back. You can keep my hairpin if you want, though.” Sunny took the headband from her gratefully, tying it back around his head. 

“Thank you. Ah, actually, about that. I don’t have it.” He looked down, guilty. “I tried to hide it from my mom, and she took it. She also knows we met.” Dawn immediately glanced around, trying to spot any more elves that might be hiding. She couldn’t see any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

“Is that- I mean, should I leave?” Sunny shook his head, slipping the laser pointer into the backpack.

“No! I told her that you were a  _good_  big thing, that you never tried to take me away. She’s okay with us hanging out, so long as I’m back before dark.” He took a deep breath, looking up at her, his face serious. “She told me to tell you that we’re your secret now. You can’t tell any other big things we’re here, or else they might try to come and take us.” Dawn nodded, holding out her pinkie again.

“I promise. Shake on it?” He did, then grinned.

“Okay, now that the serious stuff is done, what’s with the shiny thing?” Dawn pulled a cassette out of her backpack.

“I’m going to bet you’ve never heard of Michael Jackson. Well, what I’ve got in my hand here is the best-selling album of  _all_  time, Thriller. Wanna listen?” She handed the box to him to study, and he’d barely glanced at it before grinning up at her.

“He looks like me! Shorter hair, though. And he’s probably taller.” Dawn giggled, taking the tape out of the box and handing it back. 

“Yeah, a little bit. Okay, brace yourself, this thing doesn’t really do quiet.”

She tried to crank it down to the lowest setting to protect Sunny’s ears, but he winced anyway. And then his eyes widened, jaw dropping. Dawn leaned back on her hands, head bopping along to the music. They listened to the whole tape in that position, and then he made her play it again.

“I can’t sit still this time. Absorbing it was great, but I’ve gotta move.”

And move they did. Dawn couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard, or danced so long. Maybe it was par for the course that was her dancing with an elf in her backyard, but the whole experience was just magical.

Soon, however, she noticed the time.

“I have to go home.” She said, clicking off the tape in the middle of their third playing of Billie Jean. “My sister will be back any minute, and she’ll come looking for me.”

As she shoved her things back into her backpack, Sunny scaled the arm of her shirt, perching on her shoulder. It was mostly to stay out of the way, but he also wanted to talk to her.

“Will you come back tomorrow?” He asked, and she nodded. “When?”

That was a good question.

Sunny was now in possession of her only watch, but he measured things in eights. Until she taught him how to read it, it was useless to him. And it was unfair to expect him to wait for her, or for her to wait for him. They needed a better signal. 

“Do you know how to whistle?” Sunny stuck his fingers in his mouth, and the answer made her jump. “ _Wow_  okay. But can you do it shorter? And rapidly?” She pursed her lips to demonstrate, letting off three short, loud tweets. It had been her mother’s signal, whenever she had gotten separated from her girls in a public place. Sunny copied her perfectly, and she shivered. It had been so long since she’d heard answering whistles.

“Since my family can’t know about you, and your family already knows about me, I’ll whistle when I’m alone. If you can come see me, whistle back. If you can’t, don’t. Okay?” He nodded, then jumped off her shoulder and onto the top of her closed backpack.

“Okay. But I want you to promise me something.” Dawn sat back on her heels, waiting. “When we get to know each other better, I wanna go in there.” He pointed past her, to the house. “I wanna see big thing stuff, maybe eat what you big things eat. I wanna listen to more music.” She waited until he was done, then stuck out her pinkie again. He shook it, and hopped off her backpack, hitting the ground noiselessly.

Back at the house, she could hear Marianne calling her name.

“See you tomorrow?” She asked, as he started to walk away. Sunny turned around, still walking, and let out three short whistles. They grinned at each other, then both took off running.

Sunny would be running home, to tell his family about his new friend, and show them all the things she’d given him. Dawn would be running home to try and convince her sister that she’d been in the backyard all afternoon, so she could keep her new friend a secret.

They spent many afternoons together after that day, playing, teaching each other songs. Eventually, Sunny made it into the house. Then Dawn started middle school, and she had less time to spend in the field, so he started coming to school with her, tucked into the sleeves and pockets of her cardigans, or hiding behind the waves of her long, curly blonde hair.

Then high school started, and the trouble really began.


	4. Chapter 4

“How about him?”

“Who?”

“Curly hair, sleeveless shirt. By the vending machine.”

Dawn glanced towards the boy Sunny was looking at, and wrinkled her nose. “Oh, no way. That’s Joey Whittle’s little brother, Mike. I go to homecoming with him, and Marianne will disown me.” She giggled to herself. “Which is a shame, he  _is_  kinda cute now.” There was a small thump on the lunch bench as Sunny sat down in her pocket. For weeks, they’d been trying to find her an acceptable homecoming date, to no avail.

“Senior year, Sunny! I’m not gonna be that loser by the snack table again!” She’d said when the posters first went up, and he’d sighed to himself.

Unlike her sister, who mostly saw boys as annoying twerps who (incorrectly) thought themselves superior to her until the day she left for college, Dawn had embraced boys with both arms. Metaphorically. 

In truth, Dawn was more talk than action when it came to crushes, and it looked like she was finally getting pickier with her affections. Which was fantastic for Sunny, really. No more sneaking into lockers or backpacks to deliver notes to Dawn’s crush of the week, moments before she begged him to retrieve them, lest the boy get the idea that she  _liked_  him or something. It seemed like Dawn was physically incapable of liking the same person for more than a few days, which is why, the closer they got to the actual date of the dance, the better the chances got of them actually getting  _her_  a date.

The lunch bell rang, and Dawn nudged her pocket. “Last chance before I toss it.” Sunny stuck his head out, but instead of claiming her remaining tots, he just frowned.

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though.” As he ducked back down, Dawn frowned as well.

Sunny  _loved_  human food, especially food that came in multiples of itself, like popcorn and tater tots. For him to turn it down wasn’t just unusual, it was worrying.

The rest of the school day went by in a blur. Sunny pointed out a few more prospective dates, but they were all boys she’d crushed on in the past, just with new haircuts. It wasn’t until they were in her car heading home that he finally spoke up.

“Okay, you’ve gotta give me a hint or something. I’ve tried every hair color and band shirt you like, and nothing. What are you  _looking_  for, big thing?” Dawn snorted. Sunny only called her by that old nickname when she was being frustratingly human. “You never see this kinda thing back home. I mean, to be fair, it’s really hard to fall in love with practical skills when the most practical thing humans your age know how to do is drive this metal monster from point a to point b, but whatever.”

Dawn reached over to where he was sitting on her dashboard, smoothing his hair back with a finger, and the tension drained from his body. Laughing, he batted at her hand. “Hey, don’t touch the ears.”

“I guess I just wanna be asked, that’s all.” She replied suddenly, surprising them both. It was a kind of honesty that neither had expected.

In elementary school, she’d just been known as Marianne’s little sister. In middle school, Dawn had had a reputation as the weird girl that talked to herself. Then she went and hit puberty, and by the time freshman year rolled around, she was officially known as the pretty little space case that lived at the edge of town. Boys noticed her, they did, but it’s hard to get to know someone that alternates between obsessive interest and profound boredom whenever they talk to you.

As a result, Dawn had never been asked out before, to a dance or otherwise.

“Sheesh, is that all? Dawn Fairwood, I’m on my knees, here. Go to homecoming with me?” She glanced away from the red light to look at him, and laughed. What a funny sight he made, on his knees on her dashboard, hands clasped, big brown eyes in a perfect imitation of her sister’s patented puppy stare.

“You just want a crack at all the different kinds of chips we don’t have at home, admit it.” She teased, poking him in the belly. It always surprised her how firm he was; his clothes gave him a paunchy appearance, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Sunny sighed.

“Okay, you caught me. But hey, if no one else asks you, consider it?” He jumped off the dash, landing in her empty coffee cup from this morning, then climbed out of it to sit in the passenger seat. It was safer down there, and there were fewer chances of him being spotted. Dawn laughed again, but she wasn’t being mean.

“Sunny, you’re never my second choice. How about this: unless an actual student at my school asks me, you’re my date?” She phrased it like a question, as if expecting him to take back his invitation. Meanwhile, he was just focused on what she’d  _said_.

_You’re never my second choice_. Such a simple sentence, but to him, it was a prayer to live by. Sunny had been… _infatuated_  with his big friend, to put it mildly, for several years now. They were always so close, both physically and emotionally, that it was no wonder that he’d fallen so hard. 

Elves fell for people with mutual interests and practical skills. Basically every choice either had made for the past nine years had been influenced by the other in some way, and Dawn was an excellent gardener. She was beautiful and funny and talented and nice…and his best friend.

Truly, a deadly combination.

“Sounds good to me.” He said with a casual shrug, working hard not to betray his excitement. Dawn had taken him to dances before, mostly in her purse or, on one memorable occasion, in a pocket sewn on the inside front of her dress, meant to hold a phone. He knew this time would be no different, that he’d have to hide all night to keep his existence a secret, but it was still exciting.

Because for the first time, they’d be there  _together_.


	5. Chapter 5

With Marianne off at college, the house got awfully quiet sometimes. School let out for Dawn at 3, but the shop didn’t close until 7, and her father was rarely home before 8. Homework usually took less than an hour with Sunny keeping her on task, and dinner never took more than half an hour to make.

That left Dawn with a lot of time on her hands, but she was rarely bored.

“Okay, heads we watch Cold Case, tails we watch WALL-E.”

Sunny climbed onto her shoulder, to make sure she wouldn’t cheat. Dawn was rarely as invested in Cold Case as he was, but boy did she  _love_  cartoons. The coin landed in her palm tails-up, and he groaned.

“Aw, c’mon Dawn. We’ve watched WALL-E a million times! Your dad got Netflix so you  _wouldn’t_  watch the same twenty movies over and over, remember?” He had to cling tight to her shirt as she fell backwards onto the couch, tossing the remote from hand to hand.

“Fine,  _you_  pick something. I’m still in the mood for cartoons, though.” She set the remote on the coffee table, so that it was in range of the sensor, and Sunny got to work.

They’d seen most of the animated movies from the last few years, so he ignored those. Dawn had also shown him all of her favorite movies from her childhood, that involved magic and singing and brave heroines and silly love stories and-

“Ooh! I haven’t seen  _that_  one since before I moved out here!” Sunny paused his scrolling, looking at the picture on the screen.

FernGully: The Last Rainforest.

“Crysta is a fairy who lives in FernGully, a rainforest in Australia, and has never seen a human before. In fact, she is told they are extinct.” He read out loud, and laughed. There’s a familiar story. Sort of. “But when a logging company comes near the rainforest, she sees that they do exist, and even accidentally shrinks one of them: a boy named Z-zack? Zak? How do you even pronounce that…now her size,  _Zak_  sees the damage that the company does and helps Crysta to stop not only them, but an evil entity named Hexxus, who feeds off pollution.” He snorted to himself. “This sounds cheesy. And wasn’t Tim Curry the clown in that scary movie we watched with your sister?” Dawn nodded, giggling.

“Aw, it could be fun! It’s also got Robin Williams in it! You liked him in stuff.” Her lower lip popped, and he felt his resolve weaken. “Please?” 

With a sigh, he stepped on the enter button.

* * *

In all honesty, it wasn’t a bad movie.

It had slow parts, and some of the characters were kind of silly, but Sunny found himself fascinated all the same. He and Dawn rarely watched movies with magical creatures like fairies in them, ever since he’d laughed out loud at Disney’s interpretation of Tinker Bell.

“I mean, look at her! She looks ridiculous! Fairies don’t have wings!” He’d never met a fairy himself, but he’d seen drawings. “Fairies are made of light and magic, and they  _certainly_  don’t wear fluffy flower dresses. There’s a _reason_  humans have so many stories about them being dangerous, you know.” He’d curled his fingers into claws, clasping them in front of his face in an imitation of jaws. Dawn had been pretty put off fairy stories after that…but then again, she had been young then.

And this movie…this movie gave him an amazing idea.

There hadn’t been fairies in the fields since before the humans came and started building, and the threat of predators kept most elves out of the forest. The thought that there could be living fairies  _in_  the forest, though, was something he hadn’t ever considered before.

Fairies were made of light and magic. They were cruel when slighted, but could be very generous when it suited them. And they had all  _kinds_  of powers. Making things bloom, aging and de-aging things…making tiny things large.

If there were fairies in the forest, it would be well worth his time to seek them out.


End file.
